MYbank officially receives green light to begin formal operations in China

MYbank now has the official go ahead to begin all its formal banking operations in China after being given the green light by the Zheijiang Bureau of the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

This means MYbank can now proceed with all the financial services they have provided to clients situated in other parts of the world. The bank can help people with deposits, securing loans, handling bills, floating, bonds services, interbank lending, forex services, insurance services, and also handling domestic and overseas settlements, according to Xinhua Finance Agency.

MYbank will mostly be focused on providing financial services to smaller businesses and consumers who do most of their shopping online.

As it is an online bank, no physical structures are actually expected to be opened by the company. The bank is expected to focus the most on clients who present deposits under 200,000 yuan and loans less than 5 million yuan.

MYbank is owned by Ant Financial, the same company that owns the e-commerce giant, Alibaba. It is expected to formally start their operations in June, according to Reuters. Ant Financial holds a 30% stake in MYbank.

News of MYbank officially being given the green light to begin its operations in China is signficant mainly because of what it could mean for the local finance scene. According to Xinhua Net, the move to approve MYbank is just the latest in a series of actions that have enabled privately-owned institutions to encroach upon the state-dominated financial sector.

Other private banks who have already begun their operations in the country include Webank from Tencent as well as Wenzhou Minshang Bank. The newly approved private banks join China Minsheng Bank as the private players in the country's financial sector. China Minsheng Bank has been operating in the country since 1996, working as one of the pioneers in the industry. It was the first national bank fully backed by private funds to operate in the country.